


Listening

by finx



Category: Harry Potter - J. K. Rowling
Genre: Gen, Post-Canon
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-08-09
Updated: 2016-08-09
Packaged: 2018-08-07 15:47:51
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,617
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/7720618
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/finx/pseuds/finx
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>
  <i>History repeats itself because no one was listening the first time.</i>
</p><p> </p><p>Several years after the war, Headmistress McGonagall calls on Professor Binns to make a request.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Listening

Headmistress McGonagall strode through the halls of Hogwarts as if she owned the place. In a sense she did; there was a bond, she’d found, between the castle and its master. To her the castle felt alive, like the stones themselves might be persuaded to share their secrets if she only knew how to ask.

The students who dodged out of her way or shouted “Good morning, Professor” as she strode past were hers too, hers to care for and protect and above all educate, so the mistakes of the past might not be repeated. It was for that reason she was now making her way to the teachers’ lounge on the fourth floor, where Professor Binns could be found when he wasn’t teaching.

The lounge was the smallest of all the ones available to the teachers, on the north side of the castle and always chilly in winter. Most of the teachers avoided it, but Professor Binns sat for hours – days, sometimes – on the worn leather armchair by the window and gazed out over the Forbidden Forest. No one really knew what he was looking at, or for, only that he would sit there even if the chair was removed, as it sometimes was when an extra seat was needed at a card game.

Sooner or later someone would always put the chair back. It was unsettling, having him hanging there in midair.

When Headmistress McGonagall walked into the fourth floor lounge, there was no one there but Professor Binns. It was impossible to think of him as anything other than Professor Binns, even now that she was Headmistress. All the living teachers and even some of the ghosts felt the same: he could never be anything but Professor Binns. It was inconceivable that he might ever have been anything else. 

But Dumbledore had known everyone’s name – every painting, every student, every house elf, probably even the giant squid. So McGonagall had asked around among the older ghosts and gotten Professor Binns’ first name. It was, she was surprised to learn, Cuthbert. The Grey Lady said that sometimes Dumbledore had called him Bertie.

Armed with this knowledge, but unsure how to use it, McGonagall stepped forward to stand beside Professor Cuthbert Binns’ chair. “Excuse me,” she said, and waited for the ghost to turn his silvery head to look at her. “Minerva McGonagall,” she reminded him. “The Headmistress.”

Professor Binns stared at her. This part always took some time; she’d had to reintroduce herself at the beginning of each new year as headmistress, sometimes repeating her name two or three times before he stopped blinking at her in confusion. This time was faster, probably since it was barely February and thus only six months since she’d last introduced herself. Professor Binns’ face cleared in recognition. “How do you do,” he said politely in his dry voice.

“Quite well, thank you,” McGonagall replied. “I’ve come to speak with you about your curriculum.”

“Same curriculum I’ve had in all my years teaching here, you know,” said Professor Binns.

“I am aware. You manage to cover every major event in European wizarding history from the dawn of alchemy to the Andromeda Treaty. It is quite impressive.”

Professor Binns nodded, as if used to flattery. That was unlikely, McGonagall knew; Professor Binns’ classes were only marginally more engaging than watching paint dry.

“I’ve come to request an addition to your syllabus,” McGonagall said. “I would like you to teach the students about the First and Second Dark Wars.”

Professor Binns looked shocked. It was perhaps the most expression McGonagall had ever seen on his face. She was reasonably certain no one had ever asked him to change his curriculum before. She was a good deal more certain that this had been a mistake. In the five years she’d been headmistress she had seen how each new year of students knew less and less about the events of the Second Dark War, even though they’d happened within these children’s lifetimes. They’d been so young, after all, and even the ones who’d had siblings at Hogwarts or parents in the Ministry knew more rumors than facts. Many parents, it seemed, had hidden the harsher truths from their children, even the ones who’d had to go into hiding or flee the continent. 

McGonagall understood the urge – they’d been so very young, after all, were still so very young when they came to school – but she couldn’t help but think these parents were being dangerously complacent. It had happened just the same way after the first war. Parents had kept the truth from their children, leaving them to guess and gossip amongst themselves. Everyone had wanted to hurry away from the past, so no one ever truly talked about the First Dark War at all.

And now… well, now they had to call it the First.

“Minerva McGonagall,” Professor Binns said, startling her. He was peering at her, his translucent eyes studying the lines of her face. “You got top marks in my class. Not many students do, you know. There have only been five in the past century. You were the second.”

Headmistress McGonagall was stunned. She’d long suspected that Professor Binns wasn’t even aware he had students most of the time. She didn’t think he ever actually remembered their names, no matter what marks they got.

“I was proud when you became a teacher,” Professor Binns continued in his dry voice. “That’s something the other ghosts don’t have, you know. Not even the House ghosts. Pride in a pupil who goes on to do great things.”

Headmistress McGonagall was speechless. The whole time she’d taught Transfiguration, Professor Binns had barely said two words to her, and even now she was headmistress he couldn’t be bothered to remember her name from one year to the next. But he’d been _proud_ of her.

Professor Binns paused again, his wavering silver gaze wandering back to the window and its view of the Forbidden Forest. “The last student who aced my exams,” he said eventually, “was Hermione Granger. Your House, you know. Top marks, every year. Except her last. She didn’t even show up. Not a single student paid attention that year, you know. I’ve never heard so much talking in my class. Nor so much crying. And then she does come back, Miss Granger does, with her little friends who always copied her notes. But it’s not to take her final exams.”

Headmistress McGonagall had never seen Professor Binns talk so much about anything that wasn’t ancient history. She wasn’t sure he ever _had_ talked about anything that wasn’t ancient history, at least in her lifetime. She was sure, however, that she’d never seen him look like this. His ghostly eyes were hooded, almost angry, his silvery wrinkled face drawn tight as he clenched his jaw and looked into the much more recent past.

“No,” he finally says. “I will not talk about Miss Granger and her friends, or about how many of them died that night. Not one of them became a ghost, you know. We waited, after, to see if any of them would appear, but they didn’t. Too–”

Professor Binns actually stopped mid-sentence. His throat worked, as if he were trying to swallow a ghostly lump therein. Headmistress McGonagall stood rigidly, transfixed by the fierce frown on Professor Binn's face. It was more emotion than anyone living had ever seen him express.

“Too brave,” he said, finally.

For a long moment they were silent together, the ghost and the headmistress. Then Professor Binns turned around and left without looking at her, floating right through his armchair, out the open door of the lounge, and into the stone wall of the castle.

Under the wall he vanished through was a stone plinth bearing two metal boots. The suit of armor they had once belonged to had been destroyed in the fighting six years ago, as so many others had. Headmistress McGonagall had heard many accounts, in the weeks after the fighting, of Hogwarts’ suits of armor leaping into the paths of curses aimed at students, and being blasted into pieces. She had heard still more accounts of disembodied gauntlets, boots, and even aggressive metal chestplates hammering at Death Eaters in any way they could.

Many of the boots had marched dutifully back to their posts when the fighting was done. McGonagall was working with the other professors and with various experts from around the continent to restore the castle’s security, even add more defenses wherever possible, but she hadn’t had the heart to remove the vestiges of those suits of armor who had fought so bravely to defend Hogwarts’ students. She would have to do it eventually, she knew, but for now they remained at their posts, reminders of the sacrifices made that night and that year.

A trio of students walked past the open door, two Ravenclaws and a Gryffindor, heads bent together as they whispered to each other. They didn’t look at the metal boots on the stone plinth beside them, or at their headmistress standing in an empty room and watching them go by. One of them had messy black hair that stuck out every which way. Headmistress McGonagall allowed herself, for a moment, to feel terribly old.

Then she took a deep breath, nodded sharply, and marched out of the fourth floor teachers’ lounge. She would put an ad in the Daily Prophet soliciting a new teacher. There would be a new history class at Hogwarts, and maybe this time they wouldn’t have to watch any more children fight their parents’ wars anew.

The scheduling would be a nightmare to work out, but as nightmares went… well. She’d manage.

**Author's Note:**

> I pulled that 'history repeats itself' quote straight off the internet, btw, but there was no source attached.


End file.
